A House of Gentlefolk Part 7

Chapter XVIII

Four days later, he set off for home. His coach rolled quickly along the soft cross-road. There had been no rain for a fortnight; a fine milk mist was diffused in the air and hung over the distant woods; a smell of burning came from it. A mult.i.tude of darkish clouds with blurred edges were creeping across the pale blue sky; a fairly strong breeze blew a dry and steady gale, without dispelling the heat. Leaning back with his head on the cushion and his arms crossed on his breast, Lavretsky watched the furrowed fields unfolding like a fan before him, the willow bushes as they slowly came into sight, and the dull ravens and rooks, who looked sidelong with stupid suspicion at the approaching carriage, the long ditches, overgrown with mugwort, wormwood, and mountain ash; and as he watched the fresh fertile wilderness and solitude of this steppe country, the greenness, the long slopes, and valleys with stunted oak bushes, the grey villages, and scant birch trees,--the whole Russian landscape, so long unseen by him, stirred emotion at once pleasant, sweet and almost painful in his heart, and he felt weighed down by a kind of pleasant oppression. Slowly his thoughts wandered; their outlines were as vague and indistinct as the outlines of the clouds which seemed to be wandering at random overhead. He remembered his childhood, his mother; he remembered her death, how they had carried him in to her, and how, clasping his head to her bosom, she had begun to wail over him, then had glanced at Glafira Petrovna--and checked herself. He remembered his father, at first vigorous, discontented with everything, with strident voice; and later, blind, tearful, with unkempt grey beard; he remembered how one day after drinking a gla.s.s too much at dinner, and spilling the gravy over his napkin, he began to relate his conquests, growing red in the face, and winking with his sightless eyes; he remember Varvara Pavlovna,--and involuntarily shuddered, as a man shudders from a sudden internal pain, and shook his head. Then his!

thoughts came to a stop at Lisa.

"There," he thought, "Is a new creature, only just entering on life.

A nice girl, what will become of her? She is good-looking too. A pale, fresh face, mouth and eyes so serious, and an honest innocent expression. It is a pity she seems a little enthusiastic. A good figure, and she moves so lightly, and a soft voice. I like the way she stops suddenly, listens attentively, without a smile, then grows thoughtful and shakes back her hair. I fancy, too, that Panshin is not good enough for her. What's amiss with him, though? And besides, what business have I to wonder about it? She will go along the same road as all the rest. I had better go to sleep." And Lavretsky closed his eyes.

He could not sleep, but he sank into the drowsy numbness of a journey.

Images of the past rose slowly as before, floated in his soul, mixed and tangled up with other fancies. Lavretsky, for some unknown reason, began to think about Robert Peel,... about French history--of how he would gain a battle, if he were a general; he fancied the shots and the cries .... His head slipped on one side, he opened his eyes. The same fields, the same steppe scenery; the polished shoes of the trace-horses flashed alternately through the driving dust; the coachman's shirt, yellow with red gussets, was puffed out by the wind.... "A nice home-coming!"

glanced through Lavretsky's brain; and he cried, "Get on!" wrapped himself in his cloak and pressed close into the cushion. The carriage jolted; Lavretsky sat up and opened his eyes wide. On the slope before him stretched a small hamlet; a little to the right could be seen an ancient manor house of small size, with closed shutters! and a winding flight of steps; nettles, green and thick as hemp, grew over the wide courtyard from the very gates; in it stood a storehouse built of oak, still strong. This was Va.s.silyevskoe.

The coachman drove to the gates and drew up; Lavretsky's groom stood up on the box and as though in preparation for jumping down, shouted, "Hey!" There was a sleepy, m.u.f.fled sound of barking, but not even a dog made its appearance; the groom again made ready for a jump, and again shouted "Hey!" The feeble barking was repeated, and an instant after a man from some unseen quarter ran into the courtyard, dressed in a nankeen coat, his head as white as snow; he stared at the coach, shading his eyes from the sun; all at once he slapped his thighs with both hands, ran to and fro a little, then rushed to open the gates. The coach drove into the yard, crushing the nettles with the wheels, and drew up at the steps. The white-headed man, who seemed very alert, was already standing on the bottom step, his legs bent and wide apart, he unfastened the ap.r.o.n of the carriage, holding back the strap with a jerk and aiding his master to alight; he kissed his hand.

"How do you do, how do you do, brother?" began Lavretsky. "Your name's Anton, I think? You are still alive, then?" The old man bowed without speaking, and ran off for the keys. While he went, the coachman sat motionless, sitting sideways and staring at the closed door, but Lavretsky's groom stood as he had leaped down in a picturesque pose with one arm thrown back on the box. The old man brought the keys, and, quite needlessly, twisting about like a snake, with his elbows raised high, he opened the door, stood on one side, and again bowed to the earth.

"So here I am at home, here I am back again," thought Lavretsky, as he walked into the diminutive pa.s.sage, while one after another the shutters were being opened with much creaking and knocking, and the light of day poured into the deserted rooms.

Chapter XIX

The small manor-house to which Lavretsky had come and in which two years before Glafira Petrovna had breathed her last, had been built in the preceding century of solid pine-wood; it looked ancient, but it was still strong enough to stand another fifty years or more. Lavretsky made the tour of all the rooms, and to the great discomfiture of the aged languid flies, settled under the lintels and covered with white dust, he ordered the windows to be opened everywhere; they had not been opened ever since the death of Glafira Petrovna. Everything in the house had remained as it was; the thin-legged white miniature couches in the drawing-room, covered with glossy grey stuff, threadbare and rickety, vividly suggested the days of Catherine; in the drawing-room, too, stood the mistress's favourite arm-chair, with high straight back, against which she never leaned even in her old age. On the princ.i.p.al wall hung a very old portrait of Fedor's great-grandfather, Andrey Lavretsky; the dark yellow face was scarcely distinguishable from the warped and blackened background; the small cruel eyes looked grimly out from beneath the eyelids, which dropped as if they were swollen; his black unpowdered hair rose bristling above his heavy indented brow. In the corner of the portrait hung a wreath of dusty immortelles. "Glafira Petrovna herself was pleased to make it," Anton announced. In the bedroom stood a narrow bedstead, under a canopy of old-fashioned and very good striped material; a heap of faded cushions and a thin quilted counterpane lay on the bed, and at the head hung a picture of the Presentation in the Temple of the Holy Mother of G.o.d; it was the very picture which the old maid, dying alone and forgotten by every one, had for the last time pressed to her chilling lips. A little toilet table of inlaid wood, with bra.s.s fittings and a warped looking-gla.s.s in a tarnished frame stood in the window. Next to the bedroom was the little ikon room with bare walls and a heavy case of holy images in the corner; on the floor lay a threadbare rug spotted with wax; Glafira Petrovna used to pray bowing to the ground upon it. Anton went away with Lavretsky's groom to unlock the stable and coach-house; to replace him appeared an old woman of about the same age, with a handkerchief tied round to her very eyebrows; her head shook, and her eyes were dim, but they expressed zeal, the habit of years of submissive service, and at the same time a kind of respectful commiseration. She kissed Lavretsky's hand and stood still in the doorway awaiting his orders. He positively could not recollect her name and did not even remember whether he had ever seen her. Her name, it appeared, was Apraxya; forty years before, Glafira Petrovna had put her out of the master's house and ordered that she should be a poultry woman. She said little, however; she seemed to have lost her senses from old age, and could only gaze at him obsequiously. Besides these two old creatures and three pot-bellied children in long smocks, Anton's great-grandchildren, there was also living in the manor-house a one-armed peasant, who was exempted from servitude; he muttered like a woodc.o.c.k and was of no use for anything.

Not much more useful was the decrepit dog who had saluted Lavretsky's return by its barking; he had been for ten years fastened up by a heavy chain, purchased at Glafira Petrovna's command, and was scarcely able to move and drag the weight of it. Having looked over the house, Lavretsky went into the garden and was very much pleased with it. It was all overgrown with high gra.s.s, and burdock, and gooseberry and raspberry bushes, but there was plenty of shade, and many old lime-trees, which were remarkable for their immense size and the peculiar growth of their branches; they had been planted too close and at some time or other--a hundred years before--they had been lopped. At the end of the garden was a small clear pool bordered with high reddish rushes. The traces of human life very quickly! pa.s.s away; Glafira Petrovna's estate had not had time to become quite wild, but already it seemed plunged in that quiet slumber in which everything reposes on earth where there is not the infection of man's restlessness. Fedor Ivanitch walked also through the village; the peasant-women stared at him from the doorways of their huts, their cheeks resting on their hands; the peasants saluted him from a distance, the children ran out, and the dogs barked indifferently. At last he began to feel hungry; but he did not expect his servants and his cook till the evening; the waggons of provisions from Lavriky had not come yet, and he had to have recourse to Anton. Anton arranged matters at once; he caught, killed, and plucked an old hen; Apraxya gave it a long rubbing and cleaning, and washed it like linen before putting it into the stew-pan; when, at last, it was cooked Anton laid the cloth and set the table, placing beside the knife and fork a three-legged salt-cellar of tarnished plate and a cut decanter with a round gla.s.s stopper and a narrow neck; then he announced to Lavretsky in a sing-song voice that the meal was ready, and took his stand behind his chair, with a napkin twisted round his right fights, and diffusing about him a peculiar strong ancient odour, like the scent of a cypress-tree.

Lavretsky tried the soup, and took out the hen; its skin was all covered with large blisters; a tough tendon ran up each leg; the meat had a flavour of wood and soda. When he had finished dinner, Lavretsky said that he would drink a cup of tea, if--"I will bring it this minute," the old man interrupted. And he kept his word. A pinch of tea was hunted up, twisted in a screw of red paper; a small but very fiery and loudly-hissing samovar was found, and sugar too in small lumps, which looked as if they were thawing. Lavretsky drank tea out of a large cup; he remembered this cup from childhood; there were playing-cards depicted upon it, only visitors used to drink out of it--and here was he drinking out if like a visitor. In the evening his servants came; Lavretsky did not care to sleep in his aunt's bed; he directed them put him up a bed in the dining-room. After extinguishing his candle he stared for a long time about him and feel into cheerless reflection; he experienced that feeling which every man knows whose lot it is to pa.s.s the night in a place long uninhabited; it seemed to him that the darkness surrounding him on all sides could not be accustomed to the new inhabitant, the very walls of the house seemed amazed. At last he sighed, drew up the counterpane round him and fell asleep. Anton remained up after all the rest of the household; he was whispering a long while with Apraxya, he sighed in an undertone, and twice he crossed himself; they had neither of them expected that their master would settle among them at Va.s.silyevskoe when he had not far off such a splendid estate with such a capitally built house; they did not suspect that the very house was hateful to Lavretsky; it stirred painful memories within him. Having gossiped to his heart's content, Anton took a stick and struck the night watchman's board, which had hung silent for so many years, and laid down to sleep in the courtyard with no covering on his white head. The May night was mild and soft, and the old man slept sweetly.

Chapter XX

The next day Lavretsky got up rather early, had a talk with the village bailiff, visited the threshing-floor, ordered the chain to be taken off the yard dog, who only barked a little but did not even come out of his kennel, and returning home, sank into a kind of peaceful torpor, which he did not shake off the whole day.

"Here I am at the very bottom of the river," he said to himself more than once. He sat at the window without stirring, and, as it were, listened to the current of the quiet life surrounding him, to the few sounds of the country solitude. Something from behind the nettles chirps with a shrill, shrill little note; a gnat seems to answer it. Now it has ceased, but still the gnat keeps up its sharp whirr; across the pleasant, persistent, fretful buzz of the flies sounds the hum of a big bee, constantly knocking its head against the ceiling; a c.o.c.k crows in the street, hoa.r.s.ely prolonging the last note; there is the rattle of a cart; in the village a gate is creaking. Then the jarring voice of a peasant woman, "What?" "Hey, you are my little sweetheart," cries Anton to the little two-year-old girl he is dandling in his arms. "Fetch the kvas," repeats the same woman's voice, and all at once there follows a deathly silence; nothing rattles, nothing is moving; the wind is not stirring a leaf; without a sound the swallows fly one after another over the earth, and sadness weights on the heart from their noiseless flight.

"Here I am at the very bottom of the river," thought Lavretsky again.

"And always, at all times life here is quiet, unhasting," he thought; "whoever comes within its circle must submit; here there is nothing to agitate, nothing to hara.s.s; one can only get on here by making one's way slowly, as the ploughman cuts the furrow with his plough. And what vigour, what health abound in this inactive place! Here under the window the st.u.r.dy burdock creeps out of the thick gra.s.s; above it the lovage trails its juicy stalks and the Virgin's tears fling still higher their pink tendrils; and yonder further in the fields is the silky rye, and the oats are already in ear, and every leaf on every tree, every gra.s.s on its stalk is spread to its fullest width. In the love of a woman my best years have gone by," Lavretsky went on thinking, "let me be sobered by the sameness of life here, let me be soothed and made ready, so that I may learn to do my duty without haste." And again he fell to listening to the silence, expecting nothing--and at the same time constantly expecting something; the silence enfolded him on all sides, the sun moved calmly in the peaceful blue sky, and the clouds sailed calmly across it; they seemed to know why and whither they were sailing. At this same time in other places on the earth there is the seething, the bustle, the clash of life; life here slipped by noiseless, as water over marshy gra.s.s; and even till evening Lavretsky could not tear himself from the contemplation of this life as it pa.s.sed and glided by; sorrow for the past was melting in his soul like snow in spring, and strange to say, never had the feeling of home been so deep and strong within him.

Chapter XXI

In the course of a fortnight, Fedor Ivanitch had brought Glafira Petrovna's little house into order and had cleared the court-yard and the garden. From Lavriky comfortable furniture was sent him; from the town, wine, books, and papers; horses made their appearance in the stable; in brief Fedor Ivanitch provided himself with everything necessary and began to live--not precisely after the manner of a country landowner, nor precisely after the manner of a hermit. His days pa.s.sed monotonously; but he was not bored though he saw no one; he set diligently and attentively to work at farming his estate, rode about the neighbourhood and did some reading. He read little, however; he found it pleasanter to listen to the tales of old Anton. Lavretsky usually sat at the window with a pipe and a cup of cold tea. Anton stood at the door, his hands crossed behind him, and began upon his slow, deliberate stories of old times, of those fabulous times when oats and rye were not sold by measure, but in great sacks, at two or three farthings a sack; when there were impa.s.sable forests, virgin steppes stretching on every side, even close to the town. "And now," complained the old man, whose eightieth year had pa.s.sed, "there has been so much clearing, so much ploughing everywhere, there's nowhere you may drive now." Anton used to tell many stories, too, of his mistress, Glafira Petrovna; how prudent and saving she was; how a certain gentleman, a young neighbour, had paid her court, and used to ride over to see her, and how she was even pleased to put on her best cap, with ribbons of salmon colour, and her yellow gown of tru-tru levantine for him; but how, later on, she had been angry with the gentleman neighbour for his unseemly inquiry, "What, madam, pray, might be your fortune?" and had bade them refuse him the house; and how it was then that she had given directions that, after her decease, everything to the last rag should pa.s.s to Fedor Ivanitch.

And, indeed, Lavretsky found all his aunt's household goods intact, not excepting the best cap with ribbons of salmon colour, and the yellow gown of tru-tru levantine. Of old papers and interesting doc.u.ments, upon which Lavretsky had reckoned, there seemed no trace, except one old book, in which his grandfather, Piotr Andreitch, had inscribed in one place, "Celebration in the city of Saint Petersburg of the peace, concluded with the Turkish empire by his Excellency Prince Alexander Alexandrovitch Prozorovsky;" in another place a recipe for a pectoral decoction with the comment, "This recipe was given to the general's lady, Prascovya Federovna Soltikov, by the chief priest of the Church of the Life-giving Trinity, Fedor Avksentyevitch:" in another, a piece of political news of this kind: "Somewhat less talk of the French tigers;"

and next this entry: "In the Moscow Gazette an announcement of the death of Mr. Senior-Major Mihal Petrovitch Kolitchev. Is not this the son of Piotr Va.s.silyevitch Kolitchev? Lavretsky found also some old calendars and dream-books, and the mysterious work of Ambodik; many were the memories stirred by the well-known; but long-forgotten Symbols and Emblems. In Glafira Petrovna's little dressing-table, Lavretsky found a small packet, tied up with black ribbon, sealed with black sealing wax, and thrust away in the very farthest corner of the drawer. In the parcel there lay face to face a portrait, in pastel, of his father in his youth, with effeminate curls straying over his brow, with almond-shaped languid eyes and parted lips, and a portrait, almost effaced, of a pale woman in a white dress with a white rose in her hand--his mother. Of herself, Glafira Petrovna had never allowed a portrait to be taken. "I, myself, little father, Fedor Ivanitch," Anton used to tell Lavretsky, "though I did not then live in the master's house, still I can remember your great-grandfather, Andrey Afanasyevitch, seeing that I had come to my eighteenth year when he died. Once I met him in the garden and my knees! were knocking with fright indeed; however, he did nothing, only asked me my name, and sent me to his room for his pocket-handkerchief.

He was a gentleman--how shall I tell you--he didn't look on any one as better than himself. For your great-grandfather had, I do a.s.sure you, a magic amulet; a monk from Mount Athos made him a present of this amulet.

And he told him, this monk did, "It's for your kindness, Boyar, I give you this; wear it, and you need not fear judgment." Well, but there, little father, we know what those times were like; what the master fancied doing, that he did. Sometimes, if even some gentleman saw fit to cross him in anything, he would just stare at him and say, "You swim in shallow water;" that was his favourite saying. And he lived, your great-grandfather of blessed memory, in a small log-house; and what goods he left behind him, what silver, and stores of all kinds! All the storehouses were full and overflowing. He was a manager. That very decanter, that you were pleased to admire, was his; he used to drink brandy out of it. But there was your grandfather, Piotr Andreitch, built himself a palace of stone, but he never grew rich; everything with him went badly, and he lived worse than his father by far, and he got no pleasure from it for himself, but spent all his money, and now there is nothing to remember him by--not a silver spoon has come down from him, and we have Glafira Petrovna's management to thank for all that is saved.

"But is it true," Lavretsky interrupted him, "they called her the old witch?"

"What sort of people called her so, I should like to know!" replied Anton with an air of displeasure.

"And little father," the old man one day found courage to ask, "what about our mistress, where is she pleased to fix her residence?"

"I am separated from my wife," Lavretsky answered with an effort, "please do not ask questions about her."

"Yes, sir," replied the old man mournfully.

After three weeks had pa.s.sed by, Lavretsky rode into O----- to the Kalitins, and spent an evening with them. Lemm was there; Lavretsky took a great liking to him. Although thanks to his father, he played no instrument, he was pa.s.sionately fond of music, real cla.s.sical music.

Panshin was not at the Kalitins' that evening. The governor had sent him off to some place out of the town. Lisa played alone and very correct; Lemm woke up, got excited, twisted a piece of paper into a roll, and conducted. Marya Dmitrievna laughed at first, as she looked at him, later on she went off to bed; in her own words, Beethoven was too agitating for her nerves. At midnight Lavretsky accompanied Lemm to his lodging and stopped there with him till three o'clock in the morning.

Lemm talked a great deal; his bent figure grew erect, his eyes opened wide and flashed fire; his hair even stood up on his forehead. It was so long since any one had shown him any sympathy, and Lavretsky was obviously interested in him, he was plying him with sympathetic and attentive questions. This touched the old man; he ended by showing the visitor his music, played and even sang in a faded voice some extracts from his works, among others the whole of Schiller's ballad, Fridolin, set by him to music. Lavretsky admired it, made him repeat some pa.s.sages, and at parting, invited him to stay a few days with him. Lemm, as he accompanied him as far as the street, agreed at once, and warmly pressed his hand; but when he was left standing alone in the fresh, damp air, in the just dawning sunrise, he looked round him, shuddered, shrank into himself, and crept up to his little room, with a guilty air. "Ich bin wohl nicht klug" (I must be out of my senses), he muttered, as he lay down in his hard short bed. He tried to say that he was ill, a few days later, when Lavretsky drove over to fetch him in an open carriage; but Fedor Ivanitch went up into his room and managed to persuade him.

What produced the most powerful effect upon Lemm was the circ.u.mstance that Lavretsky had ordered a piano from town to be sent into the country expressly for him.

They set off together to the Kalitins' and spent the evening with them, but not so pleasantly as on the last occasion. Panshin was there, he talked a great deal about his expedition, and very amusingly mimicked and described the country gentry he had seen; Lavretsky laughed, but Lemm would not come out of his corner, and sat silent, slightly tremulous all over like a spider, looking dull and sullen, and he only revived when Lavretsky began to take leave. Even when he was sitting in the carriage, the old man was still shy and constrained; but the warm soft air, the light breeze, and the light shadows, the scent of the gra.s.s and the birch-buds, the peaceful light of the starlit, moonless night, the pleasant tramp and snort of the horses--all the witchery of the roadside, the spring and the night, sank into the poor German's soul, and he was himself the first to begin a conversation with Lavretsky.

Chapter XXII

He began talking about music, about Lisa, then of music again. He seemed to enunciate his words more slowly when he spoke of Lisa. Lavretsky turned the conversation on his compositions, and half in jest, offered to write him a libretto.

"H'm, a libretto!" replied Lemm; "no, that is not in my line; I have not now the liveliness, the play of the imagination, which is needed for an opera; I have lost too much of my power... But if I were still able to do something,--I should be content with a song; of course, I should like to have beautiful words..."

He ceased speaking, and sat a long while motionless, his eyes lifted to the heavens.

"For instance," he said at last, "something in this way: 'Ye stars, ye pure stars!'"

Lavretsky turned his face slightly towards him and began to look at him.

"'Ye stars, pure stars,'" repeated Lemm... "'You look down upon the righteous and guilty alike.. but only the pure in heart,'--or something of that kind--'comprehend you'--that is, no--'love you.' But I am not a poet. I'm not equal to it! Something for that kind, though, something lofty."

Lemm pushed his hat on to the back of his head; in the dim twilight of the clear night his face looked paler and younger.

"'And you too,'" he continued, his voice gradually sinking, "'ye know who loves, who can love, because, pure ones, ye alone can comfort'...

No, that's not it at all! I am not a poet," he said, "but something of that sort."

"I am sorry I am not a poet," observed Lavretsky.

"Vain dreams!" replied Lemm, and he buried himself in the corner of the carriage. He closed his eyes as though he were disposing himself to sleep.

A few instants pa.s.sed... Lavretsky listened... "'Stars, pure stars, love,'" muttered the old man.

"Love," Lavretsky repeated to himself. He sank into thought--and his heart grew heavy.